Ukraine is renowned as the breadbasket of Europe thanks to its black soils ("Chernozem" black because of the high organic matter content) which offer exceptional agronomic conditions. Over the years, the Chernozem soils have been degraded by poor land...
انظر المزيد +Ukraine is renowned as the breadbasket of Europe thanks to its black soils ("Chernozem" black because of the high organic matter content) which offer exceptional agronomic conditions. Over the years, the Chernozem soils have been degraded by poor land management and the resulting soil erosion. It is estimated that more than 500 million tons of soil are eroded annually from arable land in Ukraine resulting in loss of soil fertility across 32.5 million hectares and equivalent to around USD5 billion in nutrient equivalent (or around one-third of the agricultural GDP): something like ten tons of soil are eroded for each ton of grain produced. Excessive land tillage is well known to be the major driver of soil erosion. Conservation agriculture (CA) with no-till is a sustainable and effective Climate Smart Agriculture practice which reduces soil erosion, maintains soil fertility, enhances drought resilience and significantly reduces production costs by minimizing fuel consumption. FAO, with World Bank support, carried out a first analytical attempt to quantify the benefits that large scale CA adoption could generate in Ukraine. The country-specific preliminary assessment provides remarkable estimates on the potential benefits at different levels: farm, national and global. The national annual benefits potentially accruing from CA/no-till adoption on 17 million hectares could reach an impressive USD4.4 billion, or 34 percent of agricultural GDP, and almost stop the USD5 billion natural capital depletion caused by soil erosion (without counting global environmental and food security benefits)
رؤية أقل ـ